CHAPTER 12CHIMPANZEE
By Diana L. Roemer
Staff Writer
LAKEVIEW TERRACE The graying chimpanzee sits in his cage. One finger hooks through the fence. A tire swing hovers behind him. A yellow ball rests at his feet.
He's waiting for fruit he knows will arrive any minute.
It's just another day at his Wildlife Waystation digs, so far away and so different from his earlier home in West Covina with St. James and LaDonna Davis.
Moe arrived at the Waystation in September, 1999 after county health workers, police and Waystation founder Martine Colette removed him from his West Covina home after he bit a woman in the finger.
For 2-1/2 years since, while the Davises have fought legal battles and rallied fellow residents to bring him back home, he's lived in this 200-square-foot cage set atop a cement pad.
"Is he unhappy? No. Could he be happier? Yes," Colette said.
She said Moe needs companionship, something the Davises refuse to allow.
But the Davises say the other chimps at the station aren't like Moe. Many have undergone biomedical research.
"Those chimps are not your average chimp, they're only laboratory animals, hurt by humans. I believe they would hurt him. Moe has been loved by humans," LaDonna Davis said.
But Moe doesn't know these things.
He's like a 6 year old, Colette said. It's all about satisfying his needs, she said. And he's dangerous.
"Nobody goes in there," she said. "You don't go in with a 36-year-old chimp. He'll bite you, he'll hit you. He'll jockey for position."
Even LaDonna Davis admits it was "easier" to keep Moe in his cage when visitors, such as the Boy Scouts, came by her home to see him.
Despite his isolation, Moe's a busy guy.
A Primate Enrichment Team see to it that he's mentally stimulated.
"We give him magazines like a National Geographic. It has a lot of pictures. And we put treats in the cages, like raisins. He sits and eats the raisins and looks at the pictures," said Laura Finlayson, a primate worker.
Items he can pry apart, like a covered plastic bowl filled with salad delivered with his lunch, are provided. Toys and books are brought weekly by the team of workers. Taped music is played. He watches videos and plays "chase" with the hyena next door.
Of course, Moe doesn't know he could be in that cage for 20 years, the estimate for his remaining life.
The Davises visit him once a week. Old friends from West Covina send potato chips, orange juice, chocolate.
Dorothy Moore, 73, has been packing Moe a basket for nearly three years and sends it with the Davises when they visit him on Tuesdays.
"Every week when we go shopping, I shop for Moe, too. That means a whole lot to me because I know he's suffering. I just love him to death," Moore said.
But Moe doesn't seem to suffer when kisses are given. Colette walks up to the cage and kisses the chimpanzee on the mouth.
"Hello sweetcheeks," she says, linking fingers with him through the wire.
"We're good friends," she said.
Suddenly, Moe comes alive. A grinning worker walks up with fruit.
Colette said the 130-pound, 4-foot-tall beast is a highly social creature and needs interaction with other chimps. Most animals at the refuge have partners. A pair of wolves, four chimps in a cage, peacocks side by side.
Colette would like to get Moe a female companion.
"I want to see if he could be hugged by another chimp. I'd like Moe to feel warmth -- and not just through a cage, with fingers."
At night, Moe will crawl into his wooden den box, pulling his blanket behind him, and go to sleep.
The Davises say they want to spend their golden years with him, though lawyers still battle over custody issues.
"This whole situation has been horribly difficult for all of us," LaDonna Davis said.